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Monday, 30 January 2012

China Glaze Prismatic Collection Swatches

Yeahh! I have been waiting for these to come out and I have been lucky enough to be able to buy the whole set *does a happy dance* ohhh yeahhh! So once the euphoria of having so much new and pretty bling arrive in one bundle, the real test was to see if they were as nice as we have all hoped they were going to be, or is there going to be a major anti climax approaching. I'm sure by now everyone has seen the promo blurb. This is what China Glaze say about these polishes in their PR "This limited edition collection was inspired by the beauty and magic of multi-coloured prisms. Complete with glitter and holographic-like technology. These six icy shades give the appearance of multi-layers of iridescent color. So add this incredible illusion of color to your line up today"

The PR pics and bottle shots are all very tantalising but they are never true to life are they, so what do they really look like? So far I think they look totally gorgeous, they are like China Glaze said "hey we have a whole vat of fairy dust and a free afternoon, lets mess around". They have very fine micro holo glitter, just like China Glaze Fairy Dust, mixed in with some other colours of micro glitter, and some larger multicoloured round glitter pieces. So, lots of glitter then! Do I love glitter, oh yes, yes I do!

Want to know a secret? I was a little disappointed when I first opened them, I thought, "oh, pretty glitters but do they deserve the word 'prismatic'?", they were not quite what I had imagined. But after looking at them closer, I am changing my mind. They do have the appearance of multi layers so the PR blurb was right there, but the more I look at them, the more I notice. Things like they aren't holo polishes, but they do have some lovely holo glitter in there but it is more subtle than I had anticipated. A nice touch is that they have a subtle colour shift that I wasn't expecting, which combined with the holo glitter does justify the 'prismatic' part of the name after all.

So without further waffle, because you will all probably skim the words and go straight to the swatches (which is fair enough in this case!) here they are.

Love it, well it is purple! The colour shift isn't as evident in this one, I think purple is a predominant 'shift' colour. Since this is purple already, then theres no real discernible change. Still very pretty though.

This shifts subtly from pink to purple. Very pretty girly colour, not sure if its really 'me' though, I don't tend to do baby pink things! Perhaps because its a pastel shade I will probably still wear it though.

Please excuse that there are only three fingers, but I had a big ding missing from my pinky and didn't realise until I came to look at the pics, and its night time now so too late to re-swatch! Its a shame because this is one of the stars of the collection, lovely teal which changes to gold and purple, and is one of those polishes you end up walking into walls whilst wearing because you can't stop looking at your nails.

This is really blingy and sparkly, but it is the least imaginative of the collection. It is basically, well, silver. Don't get me wrong, it is a good silver polish and I like silvers so this will definitely be happily adorning my fingers again.

The other star of this collection, and the one I ended up wearing as a full mani after my messy swatch-athon (I swear there is glitter everywhere now!). This changes from an ice blue to mid blurple to purple, love it!

So there we have it, the whole collection for your viewing pleasure. Please forgive the slowly degrading polish clean ups, but it was getting harder and harder to shift all the glitter in between swatches, and of course my poor cuticles look the worse for wear in the end too!

All these pics are 3 coats, the polishes all covered well and the formula was easy to work with. They did dry gritty and a little matte, and all of the swatch pics were taken without top coat in weak but direct sunshine. These were quite hungry when it did come to adding a top coat, but not the worst I have seen. A generous dollop or two of topcoat evened my final mani out nicely and they are now shiny happy nails.

Just out of interest, I was asked would they make a good layering polish over a dark colour especially, so I took a quick snap of Optical Illusion over a Butter London Dark Knight dupe, I think the answer would have to be a yes, don't you!

So what do you think? Love them, hate them, disappointed or excited, leave a comment and let me know :)

Ooh.. totally disappointed with this. They look like they belong in the past holiday collection, Eye Candy. I liked those, but I thought the Prismatics would be somewhat hologrpahic, not just glitter :(

dang....i'm totally disappointed. the promo pics totally made me super excited about these being prismatic, so i'm let down that these aren't what i thought they would be. but thank you for posting this for us to see. i agree that my wallet greatly thanks you. :)

Thanks for all the comments, its a mixed bag I have had with these. People I have spoken to seem to either love them of hate them! I agree they are not what I expected either, but they are super sparkly and pretty. The holo part is the micro glitter, like I said its like the China Glaze fairy dust polish, but they aren't the holo polishes I was first expecting. I was rather hoping they would be similar to Ozotics Mish Mash polishes, (holo and multi chrome!) but in pastel shades. I still come down on the side of liking them though :)

I'm just a bit glittered out. I think if they hadn't come out with the Eye Candy collection, I would be way more excited about this. But the fact of the matter is, I just don't need or really want any more glitters in my collection. On another note, this says a January release date, but I haven't seen them anywhere in the states at either beauty salons or supply stores.

I'm also disappointed! I ended up buying Liquid crystal because I'm a blurple freak, but could only justify the one. I managed to find it for cheap (Sally Beauty) so I just bought it for fun. If it doesn't work, my sister will be happy to take it off my hands. :)

With regard to your middle finger...I *like* that it's shorter than the rest and you still kept it. My middle finger on my right hand is notorious for flaking and peeling and it is a rarity (near impossibility?) that my nails are ever all the same length. Seeing your lovely swatches makes it easier to envision what the colors would look like on my own fingernails, so thank you for that. :)

thanks for the swatches. i was initially excited to buy the whole set thinking it was like the original holos... but upon seeing them they're not really holo at all! nice colours though but hopefully CG will come out with real holos again :)